Product details
- ISBN 9798899480171
- Weight: 255g
- Dimensions: 133 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jun 2026
- Publisher: Northwestern University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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A beloved, smart, and bold story collection surges back to life in a new print edition
Hailed as "revolutionary fiction," When the Messenger Is Hot gleefully upends the short-story form, rendering the absurdities and possibilities of modern urban life with disarming humor and keen perception as Crane weaves through grief and womanhood. The women in Elizabeth Crane's world are fierce and kind, damaged and optimistic. They are jilted lovers, absent daughters, twelve-steppers, and smart-asses, recovering from loss, addiction, or betrayal. From a woman who decides to live on the rooftop of her friend's apartment (why not?), to a writer whose identity is compromised by the actress who portrays her, to a daughter who believes her deceased mother is still alive and living at the bus depot, these characters experience love and loss in a way that is both profoundly universal and uniquely theirs.
Elizabeth Crane is the author of the memoir This Story Will Change and six works of fiction, including the story collection Turf and the novel The History of Great Things. Her stories have been translated into several languages and have appeared in numerous publications, including Catapult, Electric Literature, and Literary Hub. Her work is performed regularly as part of NPR's Selected Shorts and has been adapted for film and stage, most notably with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre. She teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the University of California, Riverside–Palm Desert.
